Australia vs India, 2nd ODI Sydney
Smith, Cummins helps Australia to seal the series.
Australia clinched the ODI bilateral series as they overpowered India by 51 runs in the second one – day international (ODI). David Warner and Aaron Finch laid the foundation for Australia as they scored 142 in the opening stand. Steven Smith’s 11 ODI hundred and Maxwell’s quick fired 63 helped Australia to get 389 on the board. It was always a tough ask for India when they came to bat. Agarwal played a couple of cover drives but soon was caught behind the stumps. Virat Kohli and KL Rahul scored 89 and 76 respectively. But that was not enough. At the end, India was completely outplayed by the Australians.
Indian bowlers were not up to the mark as they leaked so many runs in power play, and the death overs. We cannot ignore the fact that Sydney cricket ground has one of the best batting tracks but these guys also had a great IPL. Bumrah have no wickets in power play in the last seven matches he played for India. Shami’s been taking wickets, but at the same time he is also conceding more than 60 run in his quota. Spinners are giving easy singles and are allowing batsmen’s to play freely in the middle overs. Don’t forget Navdeep Saini was never in a good form to be a part of this Indian squad. It was Hardik Pandya’s four overs that restricted Australia to a total below 400.
The interesting thing to notice in the Australian camp is there was no certain game plan or there was not much talking when two batsmen’s were in the middle. They were just enjoying themselves; and how good was that innings of Steve Smith? Smith who nearly averages 64 against India scored a brilliant ton. It seems like he was just playing with the field by finding those gaps or taking quick singles. Well, the half of the credit goes to the bowlers who constantly bowled him length deliveries, allowing him to play his shots. “Another great foundation set by Finch and Davey. That allowed me go hard at the back end. We know India have a good batting line-up, so we needed big totals. I tried to whack the ball too hard in the IPL but I’ve started hitting it with more finesse,” Smith said. The only concern for Australia at the moment is Mitchell Starc’s form; he has conceded 147 runs in his 18 overs and has only one wicket of Shami.
Brief Scores: Australia 389/4 in 50 overs (Steve Smith 104, David Warner 83; Hardik Pandya 1-24, Mohammed Shami 1-73) beat India 338/9 in 50 overs (Virat Kohli 89; Pat Cummins 3-67) by 51 runs.
The Third and the final ODI will be played at Manuka Oval, Canberra on 2nd December, Wednesday. The Australians are playing dominant cricket at the moment, and they have not lost a single ODI match at Manuka Oval, Canberra till now. Can India bounce back? Or The Australians will whitewash India for the very first time in one — day cricket.